AG Tedros, speaking at a global action meeting against Covid-19, explained that “in some countries, high vaccination coverage, combined with the lower severity of Omicron, leads to a false narrative according to which the pandemic is over. At the same time, low vaccination coverage and low testing rates in other countries create ideal conditions for new variants to emerge.”
And to add: “We can control the pandemic this year, but we run an increased risk of wasting this opportunity. Currently, 116 countries are far from reaching our common goal of vaccinating 70% of the population of each country by the middle of this year”.
In this sense, he recalled that thanks to the ACT accelerator, an international mechanism for access to tools to fight against Covid-19, to its COVAX component and “to our partnership with UNICEF, we are now overcoming some of the constraints supply and delivery challenges we faced last year, with over a billion doses of vaccine shipped.”
To vaccinate the world, “we ask all countries to support the global target of 70% set by the WHO”, recommended AG Tedros, who asked all countries to contribute to the financing of the ACT accelerator, especially for the immediate need of US$16 billion.
According to the WHO boss, building local vaccine manufacturing capacity around the world, including through temporary intellectual property waivers for Covid-19 tools, “will help end this pandemic and to ensure the safety of all of us”.
It should be noted that the WHO foresees the end of the “acute phase” of the Covid-19 pandemic this year, on the condition of course that 70% of the world’s population is vaccinated by the middle of the year, around June or July.
